Looking at Art

Art is a means of communication with people
– Mussorgsky

I look at art
—American Indian, Minoan, Weimar Republic art—
and it is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful…
all by itself;
always beautiful, self-validating, breeding text
all on its own,
like a wonder or a fiery geranium
hanging their coats from unsuspended crystal hooks,
themselves amnesiac of circumstances.

Then I look at the descendants of my hands,
the sons and daughters of my fingers kneading earth
—soufflés, embroideries, dissertations or poems,
mostly poems—
and they are not
delicious, artful, erudite, silver-tongued
all the time;
especially not at night,
when they lie in their infant cribs
naked and practical,
their mouths uninhabited by the wind of kiss,
the yeast of smiles, ideas, secrets, songs,
of all the nightingales I wanted to caress
with my fingers’ heirs, my arts and crafts;
like a widowed glass of French Bordeaux
without the torch of tongue to light its blaze,
like hollowed moon weeded of the castles
that take root in children’s dreams.

They say this is not art;
not real art at all!
Just make-believe pearls
with the credentials of inlaid heart,
just juvenile keepsakes in brittle, transparent wrap,
just recipes and stitches, stitches and words
—words on top of words—
to sew up a mantle of broken things:
a toy unicorn,
a ripe pomegranate,
or scattered continents.

No art. No art at all.
So bring me honey-coated stamps and envelopes white
and hurry to the Postman’s House—tonight—
to mail them all, open or confidential,
to their respective nightingale addressees
—a tired love, an undecided friend, a publisher,
or even myself—
one Holy Mountain of white letters,
white, white, white, white; and light
like angel feet on cotton clouds,
weightless of art,
carrying but the tiny half-an-ounce of my wish
to feel the contours of man
and have them feel me back,
itself perhaps an art of sorts
in homeless, amputee environs,
but of a different, not so royal kind
as the museum pieces I am looking at
—American Indian, Minoan, Weimar Republic art.

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